The Cabildo of Lanzarote, led by Coalición Canaria and the Partido Popular, has announced that it will initiate "from scratch" the revision of the Island Plan of Lanzarote during this mandate. According to what they have stated, the previous island government group definitively archived the revision procedure last October 2022.
This was stated this Thursday at the press conference held at the headquarters of the Island Corporation, by the president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Oswaldo Betancort, and the Minister of Territorial Policy, Jesús Machín.
The current government group considers that, "given the difficulty involved in the possible revocation of the agreed terms, and the legal uncertainty that any action in this regard would cause", it will opt for initiating a "new file of substantial modification of the Island Plan", under the advice of the Territorial Policy Area.
"This irresponsible decision of the previous government group has meant that we cannot take advantage of any of the revision work carried out by the Ezquiaga office and, in addition, the more than 600,000 euros that were paid for this revision have been thrown away," said the president of the Cabildo, Oswaldo Betancort.
In the same vein, the head of the area expressed his regret that the government led by the PSOE chose not to promote its processing and did not advance in the PIOL procedure for three years, until October 2022, when it was agreed to definitively archive the revision procedure in the plenary session of the Corporation," said the councillor.
In 2022, the Cabildo of Lanzarote decided not to continue with the processing of the PIOL Revision that required its adaptation in accordance with the entry into force of Law 4/207, known as the Land Law. "What it decided was to let the administrative procedure of the PIOL lapse without keeping a single one of the acts, they completely desisted in that plenary agreement of the processing and all the acts in progress", added the Councillor for Territorial Policy, Jesús Machín.
A revision of the PIOL that began in 2007
In 2007, it was resolved to award the contract for Consultancy and assistance for the drafting of the Island Plan of Lanzarote, through an open procedure, to the entity Ezquiaga Arquitectura, Sociedad y Territorio SL, for an amount of 540,000 euros. This contract was subject to successive extensions, taking into account the circumstances stated in the administrative file.
In 2016, the modification of the reference contract was agreed, at the request of the Territorial Policy Area and due to the entry into force of Law 14/2014 on Harmonisation and Simplification in matters of Protection of the Territory and Natural Resources, so that the initial approval document would be adapted to the new legal determinations, for an amount of 109,782 euros.
The total amount of the work corresponding to the technical assistance of the Revision of the Island Plan amounts to 616,875 euros.
The steps to follow
From now on, the Cabildo of Lanzarote has to start the procedure for the revision of the PIOL from the beginning, starting with the resolution of the contract with the Ezquiaga office, which, although they also approved it in plenary, did not carry it out.
Now a new procedure will be initiated to initiate the substantial modification of the Island Plan, with the establishment of a schedule of processing deadlines to have a new Island Plan of Lanzarote.
In this regard, and following the guidelines for the approval of a territorial plan, the Cabildo of Lanzarote will submit to prior public consultation, for the necessary period, through the Cabildo's website, the document of the Island Plan of Lanzarote, in order to gather the opinion of citizens and the most representative organisations potentially affected about the problems to be solved, the need and opportunity of the regulation, the objectives pursued and the possible alternative regulatory and non-regulatory solutions.